Silently, Silently

They suck the blood out of you. That’s how they do it. There’s really nothing to it, it’s just your life leaving your veins. You are drained of your being, essentially. I never really understood the process. I was barely alive, and barely dead at the same time. I could hear voices, but I didn’t know if it was in my head or the hoard of blood suckers draining me dry. There’s a stench at the tip of my tongue that I can’t really put any words into. It tastes like death. I can feel death. How do you even feel death?

They’re vampires. I’ve been hunting their kind, like how my father before me hunted their kind. I am never really good at it, but that’s the only thing I know to do. I was never good at anything but killing, supposedly, the undead. Now they’re killing me. Murmuring in darkness in words I do not understand, talking and whispering, while their clammy hands dig through my skin and their teeth painlessly puncture my flesh. I got captured, caught, and trapped like a stupid animal. I’m the animal in the trap. I’m going to be food for their children and their dirty little mouths going to have my blood dripping on their dirty little chin.

“Enough”, one of them whispered in English. “He’s ready.”

Ready for what? I’m barely functioning. I’m not ready to die if that’s what he meant, but I feel like I don’t have a choice in that matter. I can’t even move anything. I hear snickering and hissing and a lot of cluttering. They’re moving about. I can still feel their hands on me. I can still feel how cold they are. How many are there in the room with me? How many of them had their fill with my blood? It was a trap. There was no way of putting it. There was no emergency, but why now? Why me? I’m a vampire hunter, but I’m pretty bad at it. To be honest I’ve never really killed anything. I wish I could use my hand. I’d kill them all.

“I said enough!”, bellowed a voice in English.

“Leave him.”

I can’t feel anything anymore. My body is numbed. I hear things, but does it matter? Does the sound I hear matter at this point? I’m going to die. My blood is sipping, leaving my veins. It’s on my skin. I’m drained. I can’t see or feel. Everything is an eternity into nothing. My head is buzzing. The sounds I hear blurring out into one conundrum. I, laying here, a bloody scene. A horror to behold, empty and hollow. There’s no peace. A halo of light shifting around. It’s too far where I can’t reach it. Is this it? Is this what I’m worth? Is this what I am?

“Bring him to me.” The same voice, whispered in English.

I don’t know what’s going on. Am I dead? What does he want? What do they want? I’m practically at the brink. Why won’t they just let me die.

“Human, do you want to die?” I can hear him say those words. I don’t know what to say. I want to die. My body lost its will to live, but why do I hear myself trying to utter, “no”. I’m tired. My life leaving a path from where I was, dragged through the tiled floor of this abandoned building, and dropped like a rag doll in front of this aged creature of the damned.

“Do you want to die?” He asked again. I can barely hear him. I’m so drained. Am I dreaming? Can this be just a cruel hallucination? My whole-body refuses to move, like it’s transfixed at the fact that it is ready, preparing itself for what will come, hopelessness, despair, abandonment. But before anything my lips moved on their own, I tried to speak and my lungs, empty and cobwebbed mustered all they can for me to speak, one word, “no”. Is this it? Am I going to die? The vampire heard and smiled, “Good.”

She scavenges for food like one of the homeless peasants roaming the streets at night. She has no place to call home, but she manages. She wasn’t like this before. She used to be royalty. She used to have servants and people looking up to her. She used to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, even brunch whenever and how ever she wanted it. But now she’s digging through garbage dumps under a neon sign of a Chinese buffet place. It has been a long time since. A long time. She remembers.

It’s cold in the city even though it’s almost summer. It’s been raining the past two nights with thunder. Food is always easy to find if you can stomach it. Her stomachs can handle the roughest of foods the underbelly of a first world country can offer. She’s eaten food that could easily make you puke your guts out, but she doesn’t care. Food is food and the city offers a lot of “food” to the people that knows where to find them. The food of this century is comparable to none. She was used to food that doesn’t come close to the complexity of the ingredients the modern people of this age put into their art. The first time she tasted lemon chicken, which she doesn’t know it was called that way was when the city started to have Asian restaurants popping up in the heart of the city in little niche groups of Asian immigrants, most commonly known as Chinatowns. She liked it. She’s looking for one now in one of the dumpsters. Thank fuck that people have grown to not segregate Asian communities before she had to walk hours to get it but now every damn block has a Chinese buffet.

It’s raining. She’s only wearing a sweater that she stole from another homeless person. She doesn’t care thought. It’s just a little rain. She liked the sweater. It reminded her of how things have changed. Most importantly it reminded her of a promise, a long time ago that she tries to forget but her body just can’t help herself. This is her life now. Roaming around and dumpster diving. At least there’s a perpetual peace now. That’s a consolation, isn’t it?

She came here from Europe to avoid. Far away from the castles and horses that she used to detest. It wasn’t important then, then there’s no room for it now. There used to be a time where there’s balls she had to attend too, for princesses and princes from faraway places that she could not pronounce. Things were easy then for her. She knew full well it wasn’t easy for anyone else’s. Things had changed for her, but her views are the same as before. So, she opened a dumpster, almost ripping the lid off, telling herself that, it’s just another day.

Now she’s under neon lights. Bright lights everywhere. Each generation has their niche. This one is “show time”. She likes it. About time the world loosens up and not remembering the dirty stuffs. It’s like the world is drinking to forget or to ignore, or both. To sweep the dirt under a rug never to return to it. After world wars, she reckons that the world needs a break and she thinks this is the generation for it. The only thing she detest about this current generation is that, their drunkards. Trying to chase the next high, either consciously or subconsciously, from the movies they watch to the new thing called video games they play. It has to be better.

“Like drunkards asking for more to drink” she whispers as she grabs a garbage bag full yesterday’s food.

“You’re awake” She beckons. “Do you want something to eat?” as she gives a couple of fortune cookies to the little kid.

“You and your random strays that you pick up” a little voice said in the dark. “You know that they are going to end up dying anyways, why do you even bother?” He asked.

“They’re still alive now. That’s all that matters” as she sighs. “That’s all that matters.”

She digs in, chewing something that she doesn’t really need.

“Why do you eat that filth.” He said in disgust. “You don’t even need to eat.” He chuckled, “I don’t get it.”

She didn’t answer. She knows that he’s just playing with her. She knows that he’s not that stupid to ask stupid questions that he knows the answers too. He’s right though. She doesn’t need to eat, but that doesn’t mean she can’t. She just misses the taste.

“If you’re going to go out again tonight be careful.” He said in a drawl. “There’s a foul stench in the air that I’ve not smelled in a while.” He looks up as his little hands feels the solid wall to his left. “This little alley of ours will be the safest place in the city.” He looks at her with a childlike smile. His little pearly teeth the only thing that’s visible as he disappears to his little dark corner.

What does he mean by that she wonders. She likes going out at night where everyone’s asleep and she’s free to walk the roads. There’s that quietness and only the sound of the cold night covering her memories. Unlike during the day where there’s traffic and noise. She can’t stand the noise. For some reason, people that wants to harm her don’t really notice her at all. She used to wonder if she’s actually invisible at night, but she knows now that’s not true. The only way she could explain it is that the people tend to overlook her, put simply, they just don’t pay attention. She situated herself to the little spot she made out of cardboard, still the Chinese leftovers she dug up in her hands.

“You should eat.” She told the kid that’s laying down across her. “You should eat it’s almost night time and you’re going to get sick if you don’t eat.” The little kid didn’t answer. “It doesn’t taste bad. Those were in a plastic wrap so it’s safe to eat.” She assured him. “It’s going to be night time soon and it’s going to be cold. You will need the energy.”

The kid didn’t budge.

There he is sitting there in front of his laptop screen. Staring at moving pixels as he tries to distinguish their relevancy. He likes what he’s watching. The circulation to his legs are minimal but he doesn’t notice. He’ll notice it when he moves them and get that ever so annoying sensation that a thousand needles are pricking you. He reaches out to his side a green can of some generic fizzy drink that he likes, his eyes never wavering. He smirks. He thought to himself that he could be playing his favourite video game right now but he’s never really good at it. To be honest, he’s never really good at anything besides day dreaming of what he wants to be. He taps the track pad once or twice switching from windows to windows, tabs to tabs, looking for something that he doesn’t even know yet. The game in the background from all of the other open windows he has, typing a word or two and tapping his mouse on top the word “search” as his phone does the vibrating warning before it dies. He hasn’t charged it. No one really communicates with him through the phone anyway so don’t worry. It will be okay. What does he want right now? He wonders. He doesn’t even know, it’s 3 AM and he’s not planning on sleeping, not yet that is. Maybe he liked that? No, he doesn’t. He switched tabs and closed the last one right away after opening it. He takes one to last sip of his drink and throws it away to the side, landing on the floor with a clank. He needs to take a leak first, but he looked up to the door and decided against it. He doesn’t have any empty bottles left either. He started to shift forward, using every ounce of his atrophied muscles to move then there it is. That feeling of being stabbed by needles running down like a bolt of lightning to his fat little legs. He creeps up slowly, not because he doesn’t want to be heard but because he doesn’t want to move fast. He open the door and stares at the darkness.

It’s a while since we see him again after his bathroom break. He sat back and popped his headphones back on and proceeded to search again. Indecisive as he is, closing all tabs and re-opening the same thing moments later. He wants more time, he needs less time. More of this, less of that, it’s the same thing over and over every night or day or time rather. Sometimes it changes. Sometimes he doesn’t feel this more than that. He doesn’t even know what he likes. I think he’s just looking for something more tactile, something a little closer to reality. Every night is the same. He ends up putting his hands under his shorts that he hasn’t changed for months after looking at countless of tabs. C'est la vie.